


But One Man Loved

by spooky_action



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Demisexual Steve Rogers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Pining, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Switch Bucky Barnes, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers, switch steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-07 07:46:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spooky_action/pseuds/spooky_action
Summary: Bucky had agreed. Of course he had.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in a sleep-deprived fever dream immediately after seeing End Game. Completely un-betaed. Title is from "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats.

Sam was the one who found him later, after the others had gone to sleep. He wasn’t the only one who had noticed Bucky’s silences growing deeper as the night wore on - Steve’s eyes were still shrewd despite their agedness. But Steve had let it lie, probably figuring they’d all had enough excitement for one day. Bucky should have known that Sam would want to press. And, maybe this time, he thought, as something dark and helpless shivered through him, the other man might have a point.

Sam paused in the doorway of the living room, standing still a moment to let Bucky adjust to his presence. It was meant as a kindness, a courtesy that was usually appreciated, but tonight it only fed Bucky’s anxiety.

“Where’s your head, man?” came Sam’s soft inquiry as he seated himself on the far side of the couch.

 _I don’t know_ , Bucky thought, _I don’t know what this is - why I feel like this._ He took a breath and tried to let the comfort of the room’s near darkness wash over him. The pale moonlight streaming through the open window gave only a suggestion of Sam’s shape next to him. In the void, in lieu of something corporeal to see or audible to hear, he’d learned to feel the other man’s presence like a kind of aura. They’d all drifted there, wherever “there” was, in some kind of celestial holding pattern, recognizing each other by essence alone. Or some shit like that. Bucky couldn’t explain it. All he knew was that he didn’t need to see Sam’s face to feel the gentle concern he was projecting. Still, Bucky wasn’t sure he had words for this yet. Or if he was ready to speak them. But he knew Sam would sit here, probably right on through til morning, until he said something, so.

“I’m alright,” he murmured.

Sam let out a ‘hmm’ sound that meant he wasn’t buying what Bucky was selling. Bucky sucked in a deep breath that stuttered and hitched on its way back out. One more time. In. And out. _Alright_ , he thought, _just say what you know._

“He told me,” Bucky confessed, once he’d found his tongue, “Steve. He told me that he was going back to...back to find Peg. Maybe to start a life. Maybe to stay, if she’d have him.” Sam hummed again, coaxing. “He wanted to...check in with me, I guess. Make sure I didn’t mind if he came back...different.”

“Older,” Sam supplied.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied. “That. And I thought I’d be okay with it, I really did. But, I don’t know, I guess seeing him today --” Bucky trailed off, swallowed around his suddenly thick throat.

“The reality was different than the concept,” Sam guessed.

 _Something like that_ , Bucky thought.

“I guess I’d made peace with...knowing he’d be off somewhere, happy,” Bucky tried again, “When I knew there was somewhere he was living, working. A whole long line of years filled with building a home, picking out wallpaper, shining Peggy’s shoes, I dunno. Doing things that he thought he’d never get the chance to do. I guess I wasn’t ready to see him...at the end. Of that.”

“At the end of his life,” Sam said softly, and Bucky could feel the way the other man’s brows knit with worry.

The truth of it was, that, despite everything - despite the Depression and the war and his time in Hydra’s clutches, Bucky had somehow held on to a kind of wild, stubborn optimism. When he’d walked away from Steve, that night after the fair, he’d never let himself think that he’d just booked himself a one way ticket. It was always his plan to make it back home. How the hell else was his asshole of a best pal gonna keep out of trouble?

And then they were back together, suddenly, against the odds - he and Steve, fighting in the war side by side. And who was gonna bet against Steve Rogers coming through to win the day? And then later, when he’d had his head blown open and cobbled back together like a jigsaw missing half its pieces, even then, Bucky had found some measure of hope. They'd been thrown back into each other's paths by whatever it was - fate, luck, who knows? Something more than science fiction, something he'd have called miraculous if he believed in anything holy anymore. And Bucky thought that, even though he could never truly make up for what he’d done while under Hydra’s thumb, he could at least do his best to atone, to earn the trust Steve had so easily (and stupidly) given him.

He’d been given years to heal. He’d been given twenty-two months with Steve. Twenty-two months to get to re-learn how his friend ate his eggs and laced up his boots and set his chin when he was being ornery. How Steve’s jaw flexed in anger, and how his eyes creased with smiling, and how his hands gentled themselves when he stroked them over the backs of Bucky’s goats. Wakanda had flowered the seeds of hope inside Bucky that he had thought nearly destroyed, lost to time and pain. Wakanda had been a new chance, a safe haven. Until it wasn’t.

“I guess I always assumed there’d be more time,” was what Bucky managed to say to Sam.

He didn’t know what Sam thought about that, humming silenced for the moment and no other sounds forthcoming. Bucky didn’t blame him. What do you say to that? What’s the good in looking back now? Wondering about the what-ifs and the should-have-dones? And what could he have done? Tell Steve: No, stay here. Give it all up, for me. Just stay, here, with me.

“I know there’s nothing for it,” Bucky spoke into the quiet, “And, God, I- I’m happy for him, you know? What was I gonna say, huh? Don’t go? Don’t take that chance to find your girl, have a good life? The kinda life he deserves? Fuck no. I had him for-- more than two decades. Held the record for time spent with Steve Rogers.”

Bucky paused, considering.

“Guess that record’s been broken now,” he said to himself, before realizing just how that might have sounded to Sam, who'd learned to read between all his lines.

“So that’s how it is, huh?” came the question a moment later.

Yep. There it was. Sam Wilson for the win. Bucky let out a sigh.

“Yeah,” he breathed on the exhale, “That’s how it is.”

Bucky expected to feel caught, but all he really felt was relieved. Someone knew now, besides himself. His great secret, finally out in the world. Exhaustion settled in Bucky’s bones like the weight of a calm sea. He drifted mindlessly for a minute, thoughts slowed in the aftermath of his confession.

“Did you ever tell him?” Sam’s voice broke him out of his reverie.

“Almost,” Bucky managed sleepily, with a wry half-grin, “Once, in Wakanda.”

“Oh man, I gotta hear this,” Sam enthused, smile clear in his voice.

Bucky snorted and then paused a little, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Not much to tell,” Bucky began, “He’d been away. Two months or so. And then, one night out of the blue, I see this big goon come lumbering up to my house, covered in god-knows-what, face like-- well, I could tell something had gone sideways. He wouldn’t say what happened, he never did. Wanted to shield me from it or some self-sacrificing bullshit, you know how he gets. But he did let me sit him down and feed him. I tried for the life of me to figure out something to say. Just staring at him, sitting there fighting with something only he could see. It’s hard for a man to feel so useless, you know?”

Sam nodded.

“I must have said something stupid enough to be funny, though,” Bucky continued, “I can’t remember what, but I got him grinning and then, bang! He was up. Suddenly, like I’d lit a fire under him. Makes tracks out the door, and it had just started raining, so I followed him with a cloak so’s to cover his damn head. And what’s he doing out in all that wet? Just standing there, arms out, laughing at nothing. So I said, ‘Jesus, Steve, what’s gotten into you?’ and he turned to me -- he turned and looked at me, there, under all those stars. You know how they get in Wakanda, big and bright. He was laughing....and all...silvery with light. Christ, I coulda kissed him right then.”

Bucky stopped suddenly, snapping himself out of his remembrances. He was glad once more for the darkness surrounding them, seeing as he knew his face would be red as a tomato right about now. And, sure enough, when Sam’s voice found him next, he knew the other man was suppressing his mirth.

“Well, damn, son. Now I know how you charmed all those ladies back in the day.”

“Fuck off, Wilson,” Bucky snipped, shaking his head a little at himself.

“No, no, man. I’m serious. That was some poetry right there. Talk about how you don’t know what to say. I bet Steve always thought you were worth listening to.”

And doesn’t that just crack him open a little more? Sam must sense the change, because his next words are gentler.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry. For all of it. You’ve had just about the worse luck of anyone I’ve ever known and you ain’t done a damn thing to deserve it. I wish I had some good news for you, but, unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the right thing to do here is. That’s gonna be up to you. What I do know is that he wants you here, in his life, for as long as you’re willing to be there. And, from what I know about you, you’re gonna manage to stick around for a while. Til the end of the line, right? That's how ya'll do it?”

Bucky didn’t bother to wipe away the tears making their way down his face. What could the moon show Sam that he couldn’t already see?

“I might have to take a minute,” Bucky managed, after a beat, “Might have to get lost for a while. But I’ll, uh, I’ll be back. Soon.”

“You take all the time you need, man. We’ll be here.”

Bucky nodded.

Maybe it was the sounds of the night around them, or maybe it was the fact that their conversation had left both men drowsy, but neither the newly minted Captain America nor the former Winter Soldier heard the still-stealthy tread of an old man’s feet as they retreated down the hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no one who would say that Steve Rogers was a stupid man, or malicious one. But, after many decades on this earth, Steve himself could admit that, sometimes, he could be a little slow on the uptake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like this is gonna be a proper WIP ya'll. Not sure how many chapters it's gonna take to get all my ideas down, but thanks to all of you willing to come along for the ride. The kudos and comments so far have been so kind and encouraging. Still un-betaed so all mistakes are mine.

**Wakanda - 2018**

 

Steve let the vastness of the sky wash over him. The stars in Wakanda were something else. Even with the light pollution from the nearby city, he’d never seen a sky so bright.

Bucky sat down in his periphery, breaking him out of his celestial musings. They’d bedded down all the animals and Bucky had gone back in to wash chicken shit from his hands before joining Steve on the broad patch of grass that encircled his small plot of land. They sat together in silence for a moment, breathing in the fragrances of the jungle and reveling in the cool night air drifting across their over-heated skin.

“So,” Bucky began, after a moment, “What’s the plan? After all this is over?”

Steve brow furrowed in bemusement.

“Whatta ya mean, Buck?” he asked.

“You know, once the powers that be decide that you’re more useful to them as an ally than as a fugitive and let you off the hook. Where will you go?”

Steve huffed under his breath and sat up a little straighter.

“Who says I wanna go anywhere?”

“Oh, come on, Rogers. You tellin’ me there’s nowhere you’d rather be than sitting here in the dirt with me?” 

“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Steve replied, cocking his head towards Bucky in a challenging expression.

“Well, what about,” Bucky mused, ignoring the look, “The Grand Canyon? Didn’t we always say we’d go there?” 

Steve chuckled.

“That was your thing, Buck. Used to talk about it all the time, back in the war. Used to see it in your dreams, you said.”

It was hard to see in the darkness, but Steve could tell that Bucky was smiling a little. 

“Yeah, I guess I did, huh? Well, then, I’ll ask ya again: whatta ya wanna do next, Rogers?” 

Steve let out a sigh. They’d had almost the exact same conversation a handful of times during the war. Maybe Bucky didn’t remember. Or maybe he thought it was time to bring it up again since Steve had never given him a straight answer.   

“I don’t know, Buck. I don’t think they’re ever gonna let me go. Shield digging me up back in 2012 really drove that message home.”

“Is it just them that can’t let it go, Stevie? Or is it you too? ‘Cause it’s just like I told you then, and I’ll say it again now, you don’t have to be the ‘living symbol of America’s can-do spirit’ forever. Let someone else do the job for a little while.”

Steve was silent for a beat. He knew Bucky was right. He hadn’t signed up for an eternity of war. There’d been a plan, once upon a time. There’d been Peggy. Steve let out a breath before replying, making an attempt to keep his tone lighter than his thoughts. 

“Well, then, pal, who do you think should be next in line?” Steve raised his eyebrows again, giving Bucky a pointed once over. 

“Oh, fuck no,” Bucky laughed, “There’s no way in hell you’d ever get me in that get up, Rogers.”

“Aw, come on, I bet you’d look swell in stars and stripes.” 

Bucky threw his head back with a sharp laugh.

“Nah, that just ain’t in the cards, bud. Besides, who would want the Winter Soldier as their Captain America? Not a damn soul, I’ll tell ya that.”

“That’s not true, Bucky.”

“Yeah, it is. You know it is. There’s too much blood on my name, Steve. And I know what you’re gonna say about culpability and how I don’t have anything to be sorry for, and all that, so just can it, alright? I know who I am. And I know what people think of me. I ain’t ever gonna be pure again, Stevie. Ain’t no good intentions gonna wipe me clean. Not ever again.”

Steve had to bite his tongue hard to keep from spitting out the first, second, and third thoughts that sprang to mind in the wake of all that. He managed to calm himself a little before replying.

“Well then, seeing as you’re so sure about things, who would you suggest?” 

Bucky paused a moment, shocked maybe that Steve had given up without more of a fight, before responding.

“You know that guy with the wings ain’t bad,” he murmured, picking absently at a blade of grass.

Steve smiled, pleased and a little surprised. There had been great pains taken by both Sam and Bucky over the past couple months to remain civil with one another whilst still maintaining an air of shared disdain. The result was a kind of playful one-upmanship reminiscent of a sibling rivalry which, nevertheless, couldn’t quite manage to hide a budding mutual respect.  

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, after a moment, “Sam would make a great Cap.”    

“Well, there you go,” said Bucky, letting the grass between his fingers blow away in the wind.

 

**Upstate New York - present day**

 

Steve smiled to himself. He knew that he’d made the best choice. Hopefully Sam could forgive the theatrics, but seeing the look on his face had been worth it. After a moment, though, Steve’s good humor dimmed. The look on Bucky’s face had been....a different story.

It was clear to Steve that something was on his friend’s mind, Bucky’s discomfort growing as the night wore on. Steve had suggested they wrap up dinner early, siting an old man’s need for rest after such a long day of travel. He’d nevertheless waved off Bruce and Sam’s attempts to shoo him away from helping them tidy up the kitchen, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bucky as they worked to dry the dishes. The other man had been lost to his thoughts, performing the task mechanically before murmuring his excuses and heading for the spare bedroom.

Now Steve was lying awake in the dark wondering if he should have spoken to Bucky about it. Or at least offered to lend an ear to whatever was troubling him. _Well_ , he thought, _there’s only one way to fix it_.

Steve rose from his bed as gracefully as his one-hundred-and-ten year old body could manage, super-soldier serum notwithstanding, and moved down the hall to Bucky’s room. He rapped lightly on the door, testing to see if the other man was awake, and was surprised to see it swing open under the weight of his hand. 

“Bucky?” he called softly.

Nothing stirred. Not even the sound of his friend's breathing. Steve frowned and made his way down the stairs to the ground floor of the house, thinking that Bucky might have gotten up to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. Just as he was about to pass the living room, however, he was stopped by the sound of voices. _Bucky_ , he thought, and then,  _Sam_. He paused for a moment, wondering if he should join them when something Bucky was saying caught his ear.

“I know there’s nothing for it,” came Bucky’s voice, sounding uncharacteristically shaken, “And, God, I- I’m happy for him, you know? What was I gonna say? Don’t go?” 

Steve knew then this wasn’t for him, wasn’t something that he was supposed to be hearing. He knew it, but instead of moving away, he settled himself against the wall, careful to keep his movements silent. He couldn’t justify the decision at all, couldn’t call up any excuses, except that it had been a long time since he’d seen Bucky. And time, well, that wasn’t something he had much more of. So he stood like a thief, listening to stolen words.

By the time Bucky had finished his story of their near-kiss, Steve was feeling a little dizzy. He realized distantly that his hands were shaking. There was no one who would say that Steve Rogers was a stupid man, or malicious one. But, after many decades on this earth, Steve himself could admit that, sometimes, he could be a little slow on the uptake. 

There must be some intelligence, some deity, some power, he thought, that delighted in jerking he and Bucky to and fro like some cosmic yoyo on a string. Lost and found and lost again. Over and over through space and time. Steve had thought that he’d made good choices, tried to consider the potential consequences of his actions. But some things, it turned out, one could never anticipate. Some things were left, waiting in the wings to be pushed out onto the stage of his life with no warning.

Steve remembered that night in Wakanda. He’d just come back from a mission, as Bucky had said. A long, terrible mission where everything that could have gone wrong seemed to do so. Natasha had been injured. Innocents had died. 

Steve had flown back to Wakanda, and, as soon as his feet had touched the ground, he'd turned them south, practically running the eleven miles it took to get to Bucky’s hut. He’d needed to see his friend’s face, to hear his voice, just for a moment. Needed to assure himself that there was at least one person he’d gotten to safety in time.

Bucky had welcomed him, even at the late hour. Had fed him and fretted over him a bit and tried, like he always did, to pry answers out of Steve that he would never give. Tried to let Steve share his burdens. Steve appreciated the effort, but the thought of any shadow passing over the peaceful calm of Bucky’s new life was abhorrent to him. Trouble would find them again soon enough. 

Steve also remembered what Bucky had said that had got him smiling and running like a madman out into the rain.

_“Well, if you won’t talk to me at least lemme wash your clothes. Christ, you smell like the back-alley of Mr. McCallum’s bar. You said Natasha fainted ‘cause of some blood loss? Pal, I hate to tell you this, but I think she just got sick a’smelling you.”_

It had been just about the most Bucky Barnes thing he could’ve said and it had set Steve to grinning like a lunatic almost instantly. God, it had been so familiar, Steve had gotten giddy with it - the feeling of being around Bucky again. Of seeing Bucky joking again.    

Steve never imagined the reality that Bucky had just unwittingly laid at his feet. When he asked for Bucky’s blessing to leave, to go find Peggy now that the option had been given to him, he hadn’t had even an inkling of Bucky’s inner conflict. The other man hadn’t wavered for a moment, had found a smile for Steve and had assured him in the steadiest voice imaginable that, yes, he would be alright, you punk, of course you gotta go get your best gal. Just don’t break the time-space continuum or whatever. Whenever you wanna come back, we'll be here.

But Steve should’ve known - how couldn’t he have known? He was gearing up for another round of self-flagellation when he heard the shuffle of couch cushions and was drawn back into the conversation going on in the other room.

“Might have to get lost for a while,” Bucky was saying, and Steve held his breath, letting it out only as Bucky finished his thought.

It wasn’t the best news, but it was something he could work with. Steve managed to steal away before he could give himself away, Bucky’s words a litany in his head.

  
_I’ll be back. Soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue about going to the Grand Canyon was heavily inspired by a conversation between the boys in one of my favorite Cap comics: Man Out of Time. If you haven't read it, I can't recommend it highly enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Man, why is something tellin’ me you might be about to do something stupid?” Sam asked, sitting up straighter in his chair. 
> 
> Steve raised his eyebrows in a shrug.
> 
> “No more stupid than usual."

 

**New Jersey - 1951**

 

“Well. That’s...quite the story.”

Peggy was still looking at him with something caught between awe and suspicion, which, Steve supposed, was fair.

“And I bet that’s not even the half of it,” she mused, cocking her head to the side in that way she always had, and, god, Steve loved her.

“No,” he replied, still feeling his way through the conversation like a man on a wire, “No, but I’m not sure how much else I can say.”

“That’s quite alright, darling,” Peggy replied, leaning back in her chair and giving him a wry smile, “I understand completely. I have to say that I myself wouldn’t have the first clue how to go about it. Time paradoxes are a bit - how do they say it? - outside of my wheelhouse.”

The phrase startled a laugh out of Steve. His best girl. He’d missed her. Steve could still feel where her arms had cinched tightly around his neck, knew his collar was still damp from her tears, knew how the skin at the base of her throat felt against his lips as he’d breathed her in. They’d stayed, locked in that embrace until a rap at Peggy’s door had startled them apart.

“I’m busy at the moment,” she’d called out, voice only slightly shaky, “Come back later.”

Her directive was met by a _‘yes, ma’am’_ and the footsteps had retreated down the hall.  

Now they were sat, just looking at each other, drinking in all the little differences that time had wrought upon their bodies. Both thinking of how nothing had really changed at all.

“Marry me, Peg,” Steve blurted out.

And it wasn’t how he’d pictured saying it, but he found, after all this time, that he couldn’t wait another moment. Couldn’t spend another day without being as close to Peggy Carter as he could possibly get. After everything, to have this chance…..

“I don’t have a ring--” he began.

Peggy laughed.

“Steven Rogers, you travelled through time with a handful of shiny stones in your pocket and none of them were for me?”

Steve grinned sheepishly, face heating. He rubbed the back of his neck, abashed.

“Yes, Steve,” said Peggy, softly, after a moment, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

______________________________________

 

“I think you’d look dashing with dark hair,” Peggy suggested absently as she typed away at her computer.

It was six days after his arrival in the past. Six days of making up for lost time. Thoroughly. Steve still blushed a little, thinking about it. Now Peggy was hard at work composing a new identity for him.

“Oh, this is old hat,” she’d assured him, “I do this every day. Shouldn’t be any trouble at all. So few people ever saw the face under the cowl, you know.”

Honestly, it reminded him a bit of Natasha. The ache of that thought cut through him almost instantly, the pain still so fresh in his mind.

“Are you alright, darling?” Peggy asked, noticing that his focus had shifted.

“Yeah, Peg, sorry,” Steve sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Don’t you be sorry. You’ve been through, my goodness, unimaginable things, Steve. I know you can’t talk about all of it, but I’m here, whenever you need me.”

Steve gave her a small smile which she returned before turning back to the file she’d been fleshing out.

“I think we’re just about done here,” she said, jotting down a few more words, “Alright, have a look.”

She turned the heavy computer screen and Steve read over her work, rolling his eyes as he came across one particular detail.

“Just outside Stalingrad, huh?”

“Yes,” she smirked at him, “You and your men, miraculously saved by none other than Captain A--”

Steve groaned, cutting her off.

“You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Now, Steven, where’s the fun in that? But go on, then, keep reading.”

He was Steven Joseph Donnelly, born in 1917 in Boston, Massachusetts. Joined the war in ‘41. Was pinned down by German forces, along with over a thousand other men, for nearly four months until they were rescued in 1945 by none other than Captain America. Donnelly was then taken to a hospital in Russia to treat some minor injuries he’d sustained which is where he met one Margaret Carter. He was currently living in New Jersey and working as a disaster relief specialist and consultant for S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Disaster relief, huh?”

“Well, I think we both know you’d make a terrible spy,” Peggy said, smiling, “And we still need to put that brain and all those muscles to good use. Unless you don’t want to be in the field at all?”

“No, it’s a good fit, I think,” Steve allowed, “I want to help, in any way I can.”

“I figured as much. I can set you up with our emergency response team and get you enrolled in the medical training department. I don’t suppose the physical fitness requirements will be much of an issue. In fact, you’ll probably want to take it a little easy in that department,” Peggy smirked, “Give it a few months and you’ll be fit and ready for service.”

“That sounds real good, Peg,” Steve agreed, “Thank you.”

Peggy waved off his thanks with a smile.

“Like, I said, darling, it’s no trouble at all. There’s just one more thing I thought worth mentioning.”

Steve nodded at her to go on.

“Concealing your true identity shouldn’t be all that difficult, as we’ve discussed. Most people wouldn’t recognize you, even without a disguise. But, eventually, Howard will figure it out.”

Steve had considered this. No amount of subterfuge would keep Howard Stark from sussing out the truth. Not to mention that the thought of keeping something like this from his old friend left a sour taste in Steve’s mouth.

“It’s an acceptable risk, I think, reading Howard in,” Steve replied, “If you think he can manage to keep his trap shut. I’m not sure how much interference our reality can take before it goes haywire.”

Peggy hummed in agreement.

“It’s settled then,” she asserted, reaching across the desk to lay her hand over Steve’s.

“Yeah,” Steve confirmed, giving her fingers a squeeze. “Let’s do it.”

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

It had been two weeks since Steve had awoken to find Bucky absent from the house. Sam couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say where he’d gone. Only that he ‘needed some space’ and would be back when he was ready. That much Steve knew himself, though he didn’t confess as much to Sam. The distance was probably good, all things considered. Steve still had a lot to think about as well.

He found, as he tried to re-frame the moments in his life that he’d spent with Bucky, that none of them felt any different when viewed in this new context. Bucky had always been a stalwart friend, a protector, a confidant - always willing to call Steve on his shit - attentive, courageous, kind. And, apparently, a damn good keeper of secrets.

All of the qualities Steve assumed were simply hallmarks of an extraordinary friendship were ones he could admit might also be indicators of a deeper love. Of course the real question was, what exactly did Steve feel for Bucky?

He cast his mind back over all those years, back to Brooklyn when he’d been so sick and so angry and, later, so stricken with grief over his mother’s death. He’d always made the excuse to Bucky that no girl would want a short, gawky guy like him, but the truth was - he’d always expected to die. Not in a fatalistic kinda way, but in a practical one. He’d either be killed by his own body or he’d find a way to die in the war and he didn’t want anybody around to mourn him.

So he spit and fought and yelled and turned all his energy towards doing what he could with the time he had and never seriously considered the after. Maybe that’s why he never had an answer for Bucky when he’d asked what was next.   

Then came the serum, and, for the first time, Steve had a real fighting chance. Of course, all he saw it as was a chance to fight, longer and harder than he had before. And he would have gone on like that probably, stubbornly isolated - a martyr Bucky would have said - but, then, Peggy had changed all that. Somewhere along the line Steve realized that he’d started thinking about what she’d look like on a crowded dance floor, on a picnic blanket in Central Park, in a white dress. He’d opened his mind to something other than war strategy and his senses to something sweeter than the mud and blood of the battlefield. He’d looked at her and knew desire, looked at the world and saw possibility, looked at Bucky and had noticed…his friend's smile - rarer than it had been before he’d been taken by Zola, his hair caked with cold sweat - so different from the sheen on his brow as he’d flung himself around the dance halls, his eyes - blue and sad and still so kind, his hands that didn’t shake when he loaded his gun - those hands that had trembled in Steve’s when they were all so sure that the pneumonia really was gonna be the end of him this time.

Steve hadn’t thought anything of it, the esteem he’d felt for his friend. Hadn’t thought it strange that his plans for a future always had Bucky in them, somewhere, never too far out of sight. Bucky who loved dames, who’d been dealing with Steve’s problems all his life, would find some gal who’d look after him properly. And then they’d all live - happily ever after.

That had been his thought, Steve realized. His castle in the sky. But then death had found them. First Bucky, then him. For decades there was nothing, nothing but stillness and cold until, in some queer twist of fate, Steve had been reborn. Though he hadn't, not really - some integral part of him, he knew, would always be buried in that ice.

After that it had been one whirlwind after the next and Steve had closed himself off once more. Gave away tiny pieces, perhaps - to Tony, to Natasha, to Sam, to the rest of the team. But he never fully opened again. He had saved what was left of his heart for his visits to the fading star that had once been the brightest light in his universe. And he'd wept his first tears in seventy years when she’d left him behind for good.

Steve knew he would have folded then, like a house of so many cards, if it hadn’t been for one thought ticking quietly but relentlessly in the back of his mind. Bucky was back in the world. Bucky, it turns out, had never left it. Like the rush of blood to the head when you stand up too quick, like lightning, like breath right before drowning. Bucky was alive, and he needed Steve’s help. The rest had been a comedy, or tragedy, of errors - depending on who you asked. The cosmic yoyo spinning away.

And now, this. A new obstacle: time itself, or what was left of it. Steve didn’t know if he and Bucky could be something more, but, by god, he wished he had the time to find out. If only--

Steve’s thought stuttered to a halt. If only, what? If only there was a way to use time to change the future? Dangerous, ill-advised. But what if time could change something else? Something like--

Steve was out of his chair as fast as he could manage and out the front door before he’d even realized where he was headed.

“Woah, there, cowboy,” came Sam’s voice from the porch, “Where’re you off to so fast? Gotta watch those crotchety old knees, man.”

Steve spun around to face him.

“Sam,” he said, trying to keep his voice level, “Have you seen Bruce?”

“Yeah, he’s out back tinkering with something science-y, I would assume. Why?”

“Thank you,” Steve replied, in lieu of answering the question, as he turned to leave.

“Man, why is something tellin’ me you might be about to do something stupid?” Sam asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

Steve raised his eyebrows in a shrug.

“No more stupid than usual,” he said, before rounding the corner of the house to go in search of their resident scientist.

Steve found Bruce right were Sam said he’d be, close to the mess of circuits and wires he had set up under a tarp near the garage. Bruce looked up when he heard Steve approach.

“Steve!” he called. “What brings you out to the laboratory?”

“Bruce,” Steve began, voice sharp but steady, in what Tony had dubbed his ‘battle-mode’, “Do you remember what happened with Scott? Before Tony gave us the algorithms we needed to perfect the portal?”

“Well, sure,” Bruce said, bemused by Steve's sense of urgency.

“Could you replicate those results?”

“The faulty ones?” Bruce asked for clarification.

“Yes,” Steve asserted, “The ones that didn’t pull Scott through time, but pulled time through him.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She cut a severe figure, with her shaved head and sharp features, pale eyes regarding him unblinkingly. Her manner of arrival suggested something more than human and Steve was instantly on his guard.
> 
> “Steven Rogers,” she addressed him, smiling a little as he assumed a fighting stance, “You’ve been meddling where you ought not.”

 

**New York - 1962**

 

“James Michael! If I don’t see you in this kitchen in the next five minutes, I’m coming up there to fetch you myself,” Peggy yelled up the stairs.

“I’m coming, mother!” came the muffled reply a moment later.

Peggy huffed good-naturedly and turned back to her daughter who’d been tugging incessantly on her skirt for several minutes.

“Yes, yes, Sarah, darling. What is it?”

“Mum,” Sarah began, nibbling on the end of one small finger the way she did whenever she was nervous, “What’s Daddy doing on the floor?”

Peggy leaned down closer to her daughter, trying to make sure she’d heard her right.

“What’s that, dearest?”

“I said, why is Daddy on the floor?”

“What floor, darling?” asked Peggy, growing slightly alarmed.

“In the office.”

James chose that moment to barrel down the steps, nearly colliding with his sister and mother at the bottom.

“Steady on, Jamie. There’s no running in the house, you know that. Now, come over here and help your sister pour the milk. I’ll just be a moment.”

Peggy pursed her lips as she made her way down the hall towards the back of their home, pausing for a moment at the threshold of her husband’s study before going inside. Despite Sarah’s description, Peggy was still rather taken aback by the sight of Steve sitting on the floor with his back to the couch, face buried in his hands. What was more distressing was the fact that his broad frame appeared to be racked with barely suppressed sobs.

“Steve?” she tried softly, “What’s the matter?”

Steve shook his head, fingers clutching a little at his hair. He let out a low groan. Peggy, now well and truly thrown, kneeled down by his side at once, placing her hand gently on one quaking shoulder. She glanced down at the open folder in front of Steve on the floor, papers strewn about haphazardly and seemingly written in - was that cyrillic? Russian, in fact, to be precise.

Carefully, Peggy picked up a page featuring a number of diagrams along with a large black and white photograph. The diagrams were anatomical in nature and seemed to be detailing some kind of torture experiment. Phrases like “pain tolerance” and “subject’s emotional state” jumped out at her as her eyes moved to the photo.

What was pictured was clearly a man’s leg, shot from toes to mid-thigh, in the midst of a surgical procedure. Some of the skin had been pulled back, cut deeply enough that she could see the bone beneath, and was being held open by forceps. The man’s toes, she saw, were oddly curled - and no wonder, she realized a moment later, as the operation appeared to be taking place using no anesthesia. The fellow must have been in considerable pain.

It was a gruesome sight, one that she hadn’t seen the likes of since the war. Ugly, but certainly not enough to effect Steve so. Unless....

“Steve,” she tried again, moving her hand in comforting strokes across his back, “Steve, do you know this man? Is this...something to do with your future?”  

Steve shuddered one final time before looking up to meet her eyes. Peggy shivered a little herself to see the pain there.

“I can’t,” Steve began, haltingly, “I can’t tell you...too much--but I…yes. Yes, I know him.”

Peggy rested her other hand on Steve’s knee, squeezing tightly. She couldn’t imagine being in the situation her husband had found himself in. Cursed with knowledge and unable to enact change.

“You can’t help him, love. If there was a way, you’d be the first to find it, I’m sure,” she reasoned.

Steve nodded automatically, letting himself be soothed by Peggy’s voice. It would be a temporary reprieve, he knew. Ever since he’d started digging, looking for any mention of a special soldier, an assassin, a man who healed faster and tired less easily than other men, Steve had known he’d gone down a rabbit hole he’d never be able to emerge from.

What Natasha had asserted about the Winter Soldier being a ghost story in 2015 held just as true today. The intelligence community had very little intel on him, and hadn’t even begun to connect the dots on what they did have. The Soviets were keeping their weapon very carefully guarded. Steve, with all his knowledge from Bucky’s file, even had a hard time piecing together a cohesive narrative. The folder in front of him was the first concrete evidence he’d found so far that Bucky was being taken out of cryofreeze and put to use. Or at least he had been, three months ago when the photographs were taken.

It was the pictures that had confirmed it. All the other information merely showed that some poor unnamed soul had recently been the victim of experimentation that would have shocked Himmler himself. But Steve had seen what no one else alive, besides Bucky’s own mother, would have known to look for: a birthmark, three dots blurred together like a shamrock, resting just under his friend’s right knee. Bucky had used to joke about what a pity it was that he didn’t have enough leaves to be able to count on good luck.

And Steve knew, he _knew_ , that any interference with Bucky’s timeline would be, at best, useless, and, at worst, dangerous. But, sitting here, looking at what they’d done to his friend was making it hard to accept that knowledge.

 _Maybe_ , Steve thought as he stared at the blood seeping out of Bucky’s open wound, _maybe it would be alright to push, just a little._

 

**Long Island - 1991**

 

Steve groaned as he rolled onto his back. Getting thrown off one’s motorcycle hurt a bit more at seventy years old than it had at thirty. He groaned again, this time from frustration, hitting the ground with his fist and causing a small avalanche of gravel to fall around him. He was still five miles out from the mission site. His bike was a loss. There was no way he was going to catch up to Bucky in time.

Steve struggled to his feet nonetheless, old habits dying hard as he began to trudge up the sharp incline to get back to the road. Coming at Bucky on a motor vehicle had been a mistake - he should have just lain in wait, shot Bucky’s tires out when he drove past. Instead Steve had managed to get himself kicked in the head by a pissed-off assassin and sent tumbling down an embankment. It was lucky he hadn’t gone into the water. He’d be doubly lucky if Bucky didn’t come back to make sure that he had died on impact.

Steve was just reaching the two mile mark when he was suddenly blinded by a flash of bright yellow light. At first he thought it was a headlight veering down the wrong side of the road, but after a moment the beam coalesced, amazingly, into the shape of a woman. She cut a severe figure, with her shaved head and sharp features, pale eyes regarding him unblinkingly. Her manner of arrival suggested something more than human and Steve was instantly on his guard.

“Steven Rogers,” she addressed him, smiling a little as he assumed a fighting stance, “You’ve been meddling where you ought not.”

“Who are you?” Steve fired back, “And how do you know my name?”

“That is irrelevant. But I’ll humor you, Captain, as I know there will be no reasoning with you on that point. I am the Ancient One, known by you perhaps as the Sorcerer Supreme.”

Steve blinked, taken aback.

“You’re the one who trained Dr. Strange?” he asked, piecing together his anecdotal knowledge.

“I am,” the Being replied serenely.

“Are you here to stop me, then?” Steve asked, “I feel like the universe has been doing a pretty good job of that by itself.”

He gestured to his ruined clothes and bruised face.

“Ah, yes, reality tends to do that. In fact, the powers that be have been working overtime to clean up after you, Mr. Rogers. And that is why I have come. The past, as you know, is fixed. It is nearly impossible to alter it so long as the infinity stones remain present in their reality. And yet, for decades, you’ve been rallying against the natural order. I know it is in your nature to fight, Captain, but you must cease this quest.”

Steve folded his arms over his chest, jaw clenching.

“You see,” the Sorceress continued, “Eventually, your stubbornness will succeed in creating an anomaly within the continuum. No system can hold steady forever. But, what then? At best you will have only succeeded in forming an alternate path, forsaking your old timeline entirely. At worst, your actions will have unforeseeable, and quite possibly, devastating repercussions - not only for your future but for the futures of billions of lives across the universe.”

Steve dug his fingers into his arm and gave a sharp shake of his head as if to cast off the Ancient One’s assertions, but he knew she was right. It wasn’t in his nature to stand down, but faced with the unequivocal knowledge that his machinations were at the point where they would most certainly produce more harm than good, Steve was forced to concede.

“It is time to end this,” the Sorceress reiterated, gentler now as Steve’s posture loosened.

Steve nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat. When he looked up next, after a few moments, there was nothing with him on the road, only darkness and silence.

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

Sam paced the length of the living room, smiling into the receiver as Bucky told him about some crazy guy he’d met trying to hitch a ride to Fresno.

“Well, did you give him one, Barnes?” Sam queried at the end of the story, laughing to himself as Bucky cursed, having picked up on his suggestive tone.

“Alright, alright, man, don’t get your panties in a twist. This is a judgement-free zone. If you wanna get your rocks off with some green-haired hippie from Idaho, who am I to stop you?”

Bucky’s response was unfit for human ears, and had Sam cackling once more. He sobered after a moment, thinking of how long it had been since he’d seen his friend in person.

“How’ve you been out there, really?” Sam asked, once the line had gone quiet, “You eating your veggies? Getting enough sleep? Learning to disrupt your negative thoughts before they can spiral into a deep dark depression?”

Bucky snorted over the line and mumbled something to the affirmative.

“Well, man, if you’re not fucking with me, that’s good to hear. Keep up the good work.”

Sam paused a minute, worrying his lip before continuing.

“Hey, listen, Buck. I, um, I know you’re still hurting, and I don’t want you to push yourself too hard, but I think maybe you should reconsider that last leg of your trip. I’m sure Maine is pretty this time of year. I just...I think you’re gonna regret it if you don’t use this time to--”

Sam stopped talking suddenly as both a rather agitated Steve Rogers and a conflicted-looking Bruce Banner walked into the room. They both stopped and stared at him, practically vibrating with tension until Sam was obliged to cut his conversation with Bucky short, giving him his apologies and urging him to think about what he’d said.

“Alright,” Sam intoned, after making the other men take a load off so they could have whatever this conversation was going to be whilst sitting, “What’s so important, fellas?”

Steve, never one to prevaricate once he’d made up his mind, forged ahead.

“Remember when I told you about our first attempt at time travel? With Scott Lang?”

Sam hummed in the affirmative.

“Before Tony arrived,” Steve went on, “With the right ‘gps’ navigational system, as he put it, so that we could travel safely and accurately through time?”

Sam gave a cautious nod.

“Well, that’s what I’d like to try. I want Bruce to discard Tony’s equations and reset the machine so that time travels...through me, instead of...past me. Listen, Bruce can explain it better than I can.”

At this point Sam’s incredulousness must have shown on his face because Bruce blanched when looked to for confirmation of whatever nonsense Steve was currently spouting.

“Well, we considered it a...setback at the time,” Bruce tried, “Given that we had a different goal in mind. But the theory is still technically sound. We could utilize the original calculations to recreate that particular quantum phenomenon again. Hopefully without trapping Steve as an eight year old or something.”

Sam felt like his eyebrows had crawled as far up his forehead as they could go and were in danger of jumping right off his face.

“So, let me get this straight,” Sam began, fighting the urge to facepalm, “You want to send Steve into the quantum realm in order to re-enact a failed test scenario that will hopefully work some fountain-of-youth-style science-magic on our boy here?”

“Ye-es?” Bruce drew out, tentatively.

“How are you even alive at this point?” Sam asked Steve incredulously, after a moment of stunned silence.

Steve opened in his mouth, an indignant reply on his lips, before Bruce cut in.

“The experiment wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous as when we first performed it. We have a much better grasp now of how time works on a quantum level.”

“What’s the likelihood that this could mess Steve up forever?” Sam cut in, unmollified.

“I’ve narrowed it down to a 7% failure rate,” Bruce replied, with a weak shrug.

Sam turned his incredulous eyebrows on Steve, who had adopted what Sam called his ‘stubborn asshole face’ and was glaring right back at him.

“Sam,” Steve started, “This is important to me.”

“No,” Sam replied, “Important is resurrecting half the universe’s population. Important is putting the stones back in their proper time and proper place so reality as we know it doesn’t collapse in on itself. You tellin’ me you’ve got a reason that good backing up all this craziness?”

Steve sighed.

“I’ve got to...fix something,” he managed, “And this is the only way I can think of to do it.”

Sam gave him a look, eyes narrowed.

“Bruce, would you excuse Steve and myself for a moment? Steven, porch."

Sam got up without waiting for a reply and headed out the front door. He heard Steve join him a moment later.

“This wouldn’t,” Sam began, “Have to do with something you may or may not have overheard, would it? Say, fifteen days ago?”

Steve hung his head a little, caught. Sam turned to him, catching his eye.

“You know that was a private conversation, man. Not okay.”

“Yes, I know, Sam. And I know what I did was wrong, but I can’t…regret that I heard it.”

Steve looked out over the lake, collecting his thoughts before continuing.

“I really did think that I was making a good decision. It was a selfish one, I know. But Bucky said that I should try, said that I’d earned a little happiness. I told him I’d seen my picture on Peggy’s desk, back in 1970. Not some other nameless guy that her file said she’d married, me. Well, Bucky said that it looked like it was all predestined. Meant to be. I should have known that he was doing what he’d always done. Putting me first, over his own needs. We’ve always been that way, with each other. What did you call it? Idiotically self-sacrificing?”

Sam nodded, arms crossed over his chest, smiling a little despite himself.

“Well, I guess the wheel’s come back around, then, ‘cause it’s my turn now, to do something a little stupid. It’s worth it to me to try, for him.”

The two men were quiet a moment, each lost to their thoughts as a breeze came in across the water. It felt cool and clean. It felt like change.

“Well, I’d try and talk you out of it,” Sam said, finally, “But I’ve seen how that goes.”

He sighed and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“I guess I’ll just have to help your fool ass instead.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He fell into a rhythm, scooping up bits of sand and letting the grains tumble down through his fingers. Hours later, he held up one last handful, watching how it glistened like fool’s gold in the sun as it fell. Thought of how it didn’t remind him of Wakandan stars at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this one led me to surprising places, folks. Let's just say the rating definitely went up. Note the revised tags, my friends, and buckle up.

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

“I know what you’re thinking, Sam.”

Sam looked up from his paper, shooting a nonplussed look over his cereal at the man in front of him. It was breakfast time on the third day after the two men had discussed Steve’s ill-advised time travel schemes and twenty-four hours until Bruce said he’d be ready to carry them out. Steve had been looking at Sam funny all morning, like he was waiting for him to speak. Sam wasn’t sure what it was that he was supposed to be saying, but just maybe he was about to find out.   

“Look man,” Sam started, “I know you’re like two hundred years old now or something, but that don’t mean that you know everything.”

Steve smirked before sobering.

“I know that you think I’m being reckless.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“ _And_ ,” Steve continued, “I know you think that I’m not in the right headspace to complete the mission.

Sam paused at that.  

“I know you might think,” Steve went on, “That I’m doing this out of guilt.”

Sam raised his eyebrows.

“And I might be,” Steve allowed, “But not in the way you’re assuming.”

Sam waved him on when it became apparent that Steve was waiting for a reaction.

“I mean, of course I feel terrible that...Bucky is going through this. That he’s been going through this for a while, it looks like, carrying this burden, and I was too dense to notice. I thought, when I left, that he’d go off and...create something new. He was always such a force, Sam, so strong, even after everything. He’d been building a life in Wakanda - adapting to the modern world much better than I ever did. And he admitted, way before I could, that he needed help, that he wanted his mind to be healthy again. He became part of the world, Sam. And I was this shell, for so many years, a passenger, it felt like. A character in someone else’s story. So I wanted you to know - I don’t regret it. I-I needed it, I think. I needed to live a life that wasn’t dictated by my own regret, or by some debt I thought I owed the world, or by alien invaders, or by the goddamn government of the United States. I needed to see if me and Peggy had a chance of making it together. So I don’t regret going after that life, the one that she made wonderful despite everything that I could only witness, never change. And I don’t regret, god, our children. They were so beautiful, Sam. And I’m so proud of the people they grew up to be. I made a choice then and I stand by it. But now...now I've got another choice to make. And I've decided that I’m not leaving him again. I won’t, not ever again, not until he tells me to. I don’t know what the future has in store for me and Bucky, but I want to be around to find out. I'm gonna make this up to him, Sam. To all of you. No matter what it takes.”

“Well,” Sam began, after a moment of stunned silence, “I’m not sure what else there is to say. You’ve gone and sussed out the whole thing by your own self, haven’t you. What do you need me for? Listen to me though, man. I'm glad you got what you always wanted. Truly, I am. But you did leave a whole lotta people behind in the process. And I'm not saying that it's up to you to make everybody happy, but I for one am sure glad you came back, wrinkly or no.”

Steve let out a breath so huge it would have been comical in any other situation.

“I am gonna say this one more thing to you,” Same cautioned, leaning a little closer over the table, “And then we can close the subject. Don’t you mess around with that man. And don’t rush him, he doesn’t need that kind of pressure, not from you or anybody. You follow his cues.”

Steve nodded emphatically, taking in another deep breath before letting it out slowly.

“Thank you, Sam,” he said lowly, with feeling.

“Thank me after we pull off this hair-brained plan of yours,” Sam said, giving Steve a wink before sliding the sports section across the table.

 

**California - Present day**

 

Bucky never did get to Maine, despite the lure of fresh lobster and what the brochure had promised were delightfully scenic lighthouse tours. He did, ironically enough, end up in Fresno. Not with any green-haired hippie, thank you _very much,_ Sam, but all by his lonesome as he meandered down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He decided pretty quickly that the inland cities weren’t for him, booking it for the coast after going a few more hours south. It was full dark by the time he pulled up to a run down motel in Venice. Still cost him an arm and a leg to book a shitty one bedroom for a night, but whatta ya do? It was California.

Bucky did one final check to make sure his arm was concealed in its special case under the front seat, along with his travel-size emergency weapons arsenal. He was still more comfortable sometimes without it on. Removing it, in fact, still felt like a rebellion at times, a declaration that he wasn’t just somebody’s Asset anymore. Shuri would kill him if she ever found out that he was keeping her tech locked up in a old chevy, but he figured what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

The room was nothing to write home about, but it was worth the exorbitant price, Bucky thought, as he leaned out his of window into the warm salt-scented night breeze, ears full of the sounds of cars moving and music playing and people talking as they strolled to and from the beach. There wasn’t a thing here that reminded him of New York.

________________________________

 

Bucky awoke early the next day and made a breakfast of several tacos from a local food truck before hoofing it to the boardwalk. The scene was a weird mishmash of run-down and vibrant, laid-back and bustling. Novelty shops and surf shops and shops that sold nothing but crystals lined the boulevard. There were weed dispensaries and hot dog stands mixed in amongst bike rental vans and fancy beach-side apartments. There were tourists with their cameras and locals with their leathery sun soaked skin, performance artists selling their C.D.s and graffiti splashed across every wall.

Bucky found himself veering away from the over-stimulation of the crowds, turning instead to trek across a swath of sand broad enough to feel like an ocean itself. After several moments, he finally reached the water...and jumped about a foot in the air when a frigid wave surged against him, soaking his pants up to the knee.

He heard a laugh coming from somewhere to his left and turned to see a man wading out of the surf. The guy was as tall as Bucky, and a good few inches wider. His curly ginger hair and beard had been bleached strawberry blonde by the sun and the eyes that smiled up at Bucky from under bushy eyebrows were the same dark blue of the ocean. The man was wearing a wetsuit and carrying a longboard under one arm.

“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” the stranger called out from a few feet away, “Lemme guess, Massachusetts?”

Bucky glanced down at himself, considering the black skinny jeans, sopping wet tac boots, and Boston t-shirt.

“What gave me away?” he asked, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

The other man chuckled again.

“Just passing through?” he asked Bucky, coming to stop beside him, “Name’s Morgan, by the way.”

Bucky took the pro-offered hand and shook it, noting the calluses on the other man’s palm, the tips of his fingers, the curve between his pointer and his thumb. A gunman. Professional. His drawl placed his origins somewhere in the southern United States. Louisiana, probably.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, “Might stay a few days, we’ll see.”

“Road-trippin’?”

Bucky’s instincts weren’t warning him of any kind of danger, the guy was probably just the chatty type. All the same, Bucky decided to play this one close to the chest.

“Something like that,” he allowed, “You can call me Joe.”

The other man seemed to take the hint, giving Bucky a small smile before releasing his hand.

“You ever surf before, Joe? You look like you’d take to it pretty quick.”

“You know, Morgan, I can’t say that I have,” Bucky grinned, “And, with water that cold, I can tell ya that ain’t gonna change any time soon.”

“Oh, well now, you aren’t from Massachusetts at all, are ya?” Morgan teased, “Not with that accent. Boy, you can’t be from anywhere but New York City.”

Bucky smiled easily.

“You caught me,” he said.

“Well, if I can’t coax you into the water with me, could I talk you into a beer back at my place?”

Ah. Suddenly, Morgan’s curiosity made a little more sense. Bucky considered the other man for a moment, taking in his broad shoulders, his big hands, the ever-present creases at the corners of his smiling eyes, and thought to himself, _Yeah, why not? What’s stopping ya, Barnes? Not a goddamn thing._

Bucky gave Morgan a more deliberate once over and the surfer’s grin widened. The other man cocked his head in the direction of the boardwalk before leading the way across the sand. A little while later the pair arrived at a trailer parked horizontally across several spaces in an abandoned corner of a public car lot. The outside was decorated whimsically with small bird feeders and Christmas lights strung across its awning. About thirty potted succulents were scattered about, trailing across the ground and crowding together on small tables. Bucky found himself charmed despite himself. When Morgan opened the door and gestured for Bucky to go in, he did so without hesitation.

The interior of the trailer was dated but well kept, all polished cherry wood and faded brown upholstery. It was clean, if not exactly tidy, with shirts draped over chair backs and shoes lying haphazardly in the general vicinity of the door. There was a chintzy placard hung over the sink with the words “Home Sweet Home” printed on it in the center of a circle of daisies.

Bucky felt a presence behind him as Morgan reached past his shoulder to open the door of his fridge.

“Ain’t nothing fancy, but I got a Corona or two, maybe a Dos Equis if I dig.”

“Actually, water would be great, thanks,” Bucky replied, turning to lean his back against the counter.

“You got it.”

The two men drank in silence for a moment, watching each other over the rims of their drinks.

“Not much for conversation, are you?” Morgan observed.

Bucky just smiled enigmatically.

Morgan huffed out a laugh before putting his half-empty beer on the counter behind him. One step brought him right up into Bucky’s space, barely half an inch left between them.

“You done with that water, sugar?” Morgan asked, voice pitched low.

Bucky nodded, swallowing past a sudden fit of nerves. He let Morgan take the cup from his hand and heard the glass plink against metal as it was placed in the sink. Then those big hands were on him, one gripping feather-light at his chin and the other slipping around his left side to loop loosely around his waist. Morgan eyed him for a minute, not moving until Bucky gave him a small nod. Then it was nothing but the warm press of firm lips against his own and a long line of heat where Morgan leaned against him.

Bucky raised his arm to grip at the other man’s shoulder, running his hand over the slippery neoprene of the wetsuit. The synthetic rubber made it hard to get a good grip, and, after a moment, Morgan moved back, letting a out a little chuckle.

“You wanna help me get this off, honey? I’ll return the favor.”

Bucky immediately reached for the zipper at the nape of Morgan’s neck, pulling it down until it caught at the end. Morgan peeled his arms out of the top half of the suit, pausing a moment to kiss Bucky again before continuing to shimmy out of the clinging material. Bucky ran his hand over Morgan’s back as he bent over to free his feet, noting the handful of scars that streaked white over otherwise tan skin. It was a body that had seen some hard use, and probably still did, whenever the man it belonged to wasn’t free to seek solace in the waves. A cop, or someone in the life. A Marine maybe, or a Seal.

Morgan straightened, knocking Bucky out of his musings. He let Bucky look him over for a moment, completely at ease in his nudity. It was a feeling Bucky couldn’t relate to. Morgan must have sensed a little of Bucky’s trepidation because his next ministrations were careful and slow. He waited again for Buck’s nod before palming the front of his pants, watching as Bucky let out a helpless moan at the contact. He moved his hand again, this time leaning in to swallow the sounds that Bucky made.

Soon enough Bucky found himself letting the other man open his fly and peel the black denim off his legs. Morgan toyed with the edge of Bucky’s shirt in question, understanding written in the lines of his face. It was his calm, undemanding demeanor that had Bucky lifting his own shirt over his head with a decisive flourish. As soon as his hand was free, he wrapped it around Morgan’s neck to haul the other man closer.

Their mouths met again, hot and wet as their tongues reached out to touch. The feeling of Morgan against him had Bucky near trembling. He’d never been like this with a man. There had only been the rough, hurried fumblings behind alleyways in his youth and one fleeting kiss with a beautiful Wakandan man that Bucky had met at a bar, years ago now. This was nothing like that. This was overwhelming, consuming. Bucky felt Morgan tug him away from the counter and then the other man’s hands were lifting him up behind the knees. Bucky’s reflexes kicked in and he wrapped his legs around a waist solid with thickly corded muscle, curled his arm more tightly around Morgan’s neck as the other man began to move.

Four steps and Bucky suddenly found himself being laid down on a large bed, Morgan’s body looming over him. He waited for the cold caged-animal fear to inundate him him, but the feeling never came. All Bucky felt in this moment was benevolently caught, safe and desired and worthy of being touched.

Morgan’s eyes were trailing over Bucky’s body hungrily, unfazed by the ugly mass of scar tissue at his shoulder and the several smaller blemishes that Bucky’s knock-off serum hadn’t been able to heal completely. There wasn’t a second of hesitation before the other man was running his hands over every part of Bucky he could reach, before he leaned down to give Bucky another kiss.

“Jesus, you’re handsome,” Morgan whispered against Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky found, to his horror, that he was blushing.

Morgan moved his lips to Bucky’s neck, sucking at the skin there and settling himself more firmly into the vee of Bucky’s legs. The combination of the suction and the friction had Bucky whimpering low in throat, fingers clenching around Morgan’s bicep.

“You want me inside you, honey? Or we could switch if you wanted.”

Bucky shook his head a little, the thought too much for him to consider.

“No, just....this. Is good,” he managed to stutter out.

“Been a while?” Morgan inquired.

“Something like that,” Bucky bit out.

“Alright, honey. I gotcha,” Morgan murmured before hiking one of Bucky’s knees up over his hip and thrusting down against him.

Bucky gasped as Morgan’s cock dragged against the length of his own, his nails leaving scores down the other man’s back as they moved against each other.

“You like that? Yeah, honey, that’s right, lemme hear you. Christ, the sounds you make.”

Buck couldn’t have stopped his moaning now if he tried. Morgan’s skin was warm and slick with sweat, his hands strong where they held him. The press of their hips together was electric. Morgan kissed him deeply in time with his thrusts, his grip firm but gentle where it cupped the back of Bucky’s knee. And, suddenly, Bucky knew he wanted more.

He let his legs fall open wider, lifting one up to hook his heel around the back of Morgan’s thigh, pulling him impossibly closer.

“Please,” Bucky said, nearly breathless, “I want you. Inside me.”

Morgan slowed the rolling of his hips, raising himself up a little onto his forearms to get a better look at Bucky’s face.

“You sure, sugar?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed, then, more emphatically, “Yes. I’m sure.”

“Alright, honey, hold on.”

Morgan leaned over to the bedside table, fumbling around in a drawer for a moment before returning with a condom and bottle of lube. Another moment later and Bucky felt a slick finger pressing against him. The sensation was foreign but not unpleasant as Morgan entered him, speeding up his movements at Bucky’s urging. Two fingers became three and then Morgan was pushing the head of his cock inside of Bucky, careful and slow, filling him up and forcing another groan past his lips.

It felt like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The initial discomfort was fading, swiftly being replaced by a burning need.

“Please…” Bucky begged, pressing his hand against the other man’s lower back to urge him forward.

Morgan didn’t make him wait long, angling his next thrust for Bucky’s prostate and hitting it dead on.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky moaned, “Yeah, right there. Oh god, please.”

“Yeah, honey? You like my cock inside you?”

Bucky groaned, beyond words as Morgan nailed his sweet spot with every thrust. He wasn’t gonna last long like this, he knew. Sure enough, it was only moments later that Bucky came, back arching and fingers gripping tight enough to bruise. He cried out in pleasure, vision whiting out as his cock pulsed, streaking his abdomen with come. He heard Morgan moan a moment later, thrusts coming more erratically as the other man shuddered through his own orgasm.  

Morgan drew in a few more deep breaths before carefully pulling out of Bucky and rolling to the side.

“God, sugar,” he said after a beat, “You’re something else.”

Bucky huffed out a small laugh, smiling up at Morgan as the other man rolled up onto an elbow to look at him.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking you to stick around, huh?”

The question sobered Bucky, his smile turning sad.

“Uh oh, I know that look,” Morgan murmured, gazing down at Bucky for another moment before leaning down to give him a kiss. He ran his thumb over Bucky’s jaw and across one high cheekbone before drawing away.

“Well, New York,” he said as he stood up, moving to fetch Bucky’s shirt from where it had landed on the floor, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

As Morgan turned, his face was caught in a beam of afternoon light, eyes sapphire deep in a way Bucky knew he wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.

_________________________

Bucky took the long way back to his shitty motel, walking all the way down past the Santa Monica pier with its carnival lights, on to the more sparsely populated beaches near the Palisades. He sat for a while at the edge of the water, careful not to let the waves catch him unawares, this time. He fell into a rhythm, scooping up bits of sand and letting the grains tumble down through his fingers. Hours later, he held up one last handful, watching how it glistened like fool’s gold in the sun as it fell. Thought of how it didn’t remind him of Wakandan stars at all.

By dusk, Bucky had his meager belongings packed, his bag resting on the front seat. Then, as the sun set in a riot of oranges and pinks over the Pacific ocean, he turned his truck towards the highway and headed east.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a baby chapter today, ya'll. But there are more words in the works! Thanks again for hanging around. Your comments and kudos mean more than you know!

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

Bucky’s truck lurched and rumbled, rolling down the last strip of road on a wish and a prayer. He’d driven hard, making it back to the cabin in four days, spurred on by the thought that he’d already stayed away too long.

He’d barely eaten and had slept even less. Which was maybe why he thought he might be hallucinating at first as he came to a stop in the driveway. There in front of him, standing sheepishly on the front porch, was Steve Rogers. But not the one he’d left behind nearly two months ago. No, this one looked like he couldn’t be a day over thirty-five.

Bucky threw the gear shift into park on auto-pilot and slowly got out of the car. Tactically, it was a bad move, leaving not only his weapons, but his whole goddamn arm in the cab as he mindlessly moved forward. But Bucky didn’t particularly care about that right now. This could be a trap, or a sign of an impending loss of consciousness due to exhaustion. Bucky should probably try to take this thing out on principle.

“Steve?” he asked softly, instead.

“Hey Buck,” the apparition-shapeshifter replied, “I, um, heard you pulling in. Sorry there’s not more of a welcoming party, but Sam and Bruce went over to Pepper’s a little while ago. They should be back in time for dinner at six, though.”

The figment of Bucky’s imagination stopped rambling and thrust his hands awkwardly into the pockets of his jeans.

“How…?” Bucky began, before losing the thread.

“Well...it’s...a long story. Do you wanna come inside?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes and remained precisely where he was.

“Okay," Steve relented, “Well, you see, a few weeks ago I remembered that there was a setting on the time machine, well - not a setting so much as a malfunction, I guess? - that made us able to move time through a person instead of move a person through time, resulting in rapid aging or de-aging. We found out about it when we first tried to send Scott into the quantum realm. Anyway, I thought that maybe Bruce could manage to make the time...apparatus...work that way again and use it on me. And, well. It worked.”

Steve raised his arms a little in demonstration. Bucky blinked at him.

“Huh,” he said finally, sucking on his lower lip and nodding slowly.

After another full minute, Bucky stepped back to reach through the open door of his truck. He grabbed his bag and walked straight past Steve into the house. Steve heard his footsteps fade as they ascended the stairs and then the sound of a door closing firmly.

Sam and Bruce found Steve sitting on the couch in the dark almost an hour later. Bruce turned on a few lights before heading into the kitchen to start dinner and hopefully avoid whatever drama was brewing. Sam sat in the armchair that gave him a view of both Steve and the doorway. He leaned forward, focus calmly locked on Steve’s face.

“So, uh, that looks like Bucky’s truck parked out in the drive,” Sam began.

Steve sniffed a little, eyes firmly on the ground at his feet.

“I’m guessing that the two of you didn’t exactly have a happy reunion.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Steve muttered.

“So what exactly did happen, then?”

“He...seemed pretty...taken aback. By, uh,” Steve gestured to his newly youthful body, “Which is...fair. So I told him about the procedure, in broad terms.”

“You mean you made it sound like you risked your life in a barely viable experiment? That took three tries to complete, I’ll remind you. I don’t suppose you gave him any reasons for your decision, did you?”

“We didn’t get that far,” Steve confessed.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Alright!” he exclaimed a moment later, rising from his chair. “Imma go brace Bruce for the most uncomfortable dinner of our lives and fetch your boy. You can go make yourself useful and set the table.”

Steve rose and did as he was told, seating himself in the dining room when he was done. Sam and Bucky entered the room a few minutes later, Sam leaning in to murmur something into Bucky’s ear, voice pitched low enough that even Steve couldn’t catch it. Bucky gave a curt nod and a small smile at whatever it was, though, which put Steve slightly more at ease.

The dinner was, in fact, one of the most uncomfortable any of them had ever experienced. Bruce and Sam tried to lighten the mood, asking Bucky about his road-trip. Bucky, having withdrawn into himself, kept his answers vague and cursory. Steve had a brief moment of hope when Bucky finally looked directly at him for the first time since he’d arrived, but the other man simply stared at him hard for a minute, assessing, like he was doing a mental inventory to make sure that all Steve’s parts were present and accounted for, before looking away again.

So it wasn't much of a surprise when Steve looked up from washing the dishes and found that both Sam and Bruce had managed to sneak out of the room when he wasn't looking. He and Bucky finished cleaning up, Bucky making to leave himself, once they were done.

“Bucky, hey,” Steve pleaded, “Can we talk a minute?”

Bucky turned wordlessly on his heel and led the way into the living room.

“You’re...angry with me,” Steve hazarded, once they were seated.

Bucky leveled him with a look so familiar it caught Steve up short. It was the same one his friend had worn whenever Steve had done something particularly foolhardy and Bucky was beyond words. He’d let Steve pontificate, babbling his excuses and justifications until he was blue in the face. Then Bucky would usually give Steve a big old heaping piece of his mind. It looked like Bucky was following his old formula in this instance as well. Steve took a fortifying breath.

“Listen, Buck. I gotta confess something to you before we go any further.”

Bucky’s eyebrows moved into their 'god, what now' formation.

“That night," Steve began, "After I’d just come back, I could tell that something was eating at you. I didn’t want to bother you over dinner, but later on, I thought maybe I’d go find you and see if I could lend an ear. But, when I went to check, you weren’t in your room.”

Bucky felt the color drain from his face.

“I heard something,” Steve went on, shamefaced, “From the living room. So I went to see what it was and when I noticed that it was you and Sam I stayed, and...listened in.”

Bucky bowed his head, groaning something that sounded like: _oh, god,_ into his hands.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve rushed to say, “It was wrong of me - intrusive and selfish. But, for some reason, I couldn’t stop myself. Bucky, what you said...it gutted me.”

Bucky’s fingers dug into his temples, the surrounding skin growing white under the pressure.

“Not because there’s anything wrong with...the way you feel,” Steve hurried to add, “But it made me realize that I’d hurt you, more than I thought, when I went to the past. It made me want to find a way to make it up to you. To give us more time.”

Bucky looked up from his hands, eyes red-rimmed.

“You idiot,” he bit out, voice hoarse from suppressed emotion.

“Bucky, I-I don’t understand. I know it was a little risky but --”

“You’re an _idiot_ , Rogers,” Bucky reiterated, swiping his hand over his eyes angrily.

Steve shut his mouth, at a loss.

“You always do this,” Bucky said, despairingly, “Couldn’t you just, for once, consider _not_ doing something completely nuts? Can’t you just _stop_ for a minute?”

“I thought you’d be happy --” Steve tried.

“You know what would make me happy, Rogers? If you just shelved the next...ten crazy stunts you’re planning to pull, yeah? Can you do that for me? Cause I’d rather have you, old and gray, than not have you at all.”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve said softly, after a moment, “I can do that.”

There was a beat of silence as both men considered each other.

“Would you rather have me at sixteen?” Steve ventured, eventually, “Cause that’s the first age I landed on.”

Bucky snorted inelegantly.

“Christ, I’d rather have you as a baby than you at sixteen. God almighty, I never want to go through that again. The most ornery cuss I’ve ever seen.”

Steve leveled him with a small grin, knowing that Bucky could see the relief, clear on his face. After a minute, Bucky smiled back.  


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s time to focus on growing, on becoming the man he believes you to be. Are you ready for that?”

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

Things were better between Steve and Bucky, after their conversation. They weren’t back to the easy camaraderie they’d found on Wakanda, but Steve was ready, come hell or high water, to mend things between them in whatever way he could.

The household as a whole settled into a kind of rhythm over the next few weeks. Sam had started volunteering at the VA up in Woodstock when he wasn’t being called in on New Avengers business. Bruce was helping Pepper make an inventory of Tony’s tech, salvaging what they could from the wreckage of the old Avengers headquarters. When Steve wasn’t volunteering with Sam at the VA he could be found out on the back porch bent over one of his canvases. He’d started drawing professionally again sometime back in the 60’s, eventually moving on to painting and printmaking. Sam had been tickled to find that Steve had designed some of the more famous protest posters for the Vietnam war. And that Pepper had unwittingly procured one of the paintings from his abstract expressionist period back in 1953.

Bucky, to the surprise of everyone but Steve, started writing. He submitted articles regularly to the local paper and had short stories published in a number of literary magazines.

“Oh, he’s always done that,” Steve told Sam when he’d inquired about it, “Wrote constantly when we were kids. Pulpy stuff, science fiction mostly. And he kept a journal all through the war.”

 

Most weekends the four men met Happy, Pepper, and little Stark Jr. at the lake so that the pip-squeak could play in the water and Pepper could count on five overprotective men to watch her child as she unwound from running Stark Industries.

It was on one such afternoon that Steve’s self-made mission to See How He Felt About Bucky got a proper jump start. He’d been sitting in the sun, drying off from his shift on lifeguard duty, when he heard Sam start ruffling Bucky’s feathers over something.

“C’mon, man,” Sam wheedled, “What’s on that screen that’s got you grinning so big?”

“Fuck off, Wilson,” Bucky demurred, turning his phone away from Sam’s prying eyes.

“Oh boy, folks, he’s blushing.”

Steve turned at that, noticing that Bucky was, indeed, turning red - and it wasn’t from sunburn.

“Is it a text? From _that guy_? What’s his name, Martin? Matthew?”

“Morgan,” Bucky muttered.

“Ah, ha!” Sam crowed, “There it is! Morgan. The hot surfer cop. You didn’t tell me you gave him your number, Barnes. This guy - too smooth.”

Steve couldn’t account for the way his stomach dropped. It was ridiculous. What right did he have? Just cause Bucky had said--

Sam happened to glance up at Steve at that very moment, almost as if he’d been waiting for his reaction. Steve valiantly tried to school his features, but he suspected that he hadn’t been very successful. His suspicions were confirmed later that evening as they all headed back to the Starks’ cabin for dinner.

“You best believe I’m gonna ask you about what your face was doing earlier, Rogers,” Sam whispered in his ear as he walked past.

Steve winced. The fact of the matter was, he was completely out of his depth. Maybe a talk with Sam wouldn’t be the worst idea, after all.

 

“Alright, my man,” Sam spoke up after breakfast the next day, “What say you and I take a stroll, hm? Air some things out.”

“You sure you don’t wanna go on a run instead?” Steve suggested, with a smirk.

Sam just flicked him off and headed over to the door to pull on his shoes.

The two walked in companionable silence until they’d gone about a half-mile around the lake.

“Okay, I’ve given you enough of a reprieve, buddy. Gonna tell me that look was all about?”

“Honestly, I-I don’t know,” Steve replied, “I guess it bothered me to hear you guys talk about that man --”

“Morgan,” Sam supplied.

“Yeah, him. I didn’t even know that Bucky was...seeing someone.”

Sam started to respond, but Steve barreled on through, like a bottle with a popped cork.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’s....bisexual? I always thought....well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s pretty obvious that I’m terrible at figuring out how people feel about things, even the ones I’m supposed to be closest to.”

Steve sighed, taking a minute.

“How couldn’t I have know about that?" he asked, "Why wouldn’t he have told me?”

“Well, Steve, you know better than anyone how it was back then. Lotta dudes had to keep that low-key so as not to get arrested, or worse. Maybe he didn’t want to burden you with it. Or maybe he thought you’d noticed and were ignoring it so as to not embarrass him. That’s something you’re gonna have to ask him.”

“But, that’s the thing, I didn’t. I didn’t notice anything like that back then. But I should’ve, if it was Bucky I should’ve.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked, “When you said you didn’t notice anything?”

Steve wondered how best to explain it to Sam. He thought back to the early years of his life...

 

**Brooklyn, New York - 1936**

 

“Steve, she didn’t mean anything by it --”

“Sure she did, Buck,” Steve replied, done with the conversation already, “And it’s not like she’s alone in her thinking. I _am_ defective.”

“Jesus, Stevie, that ain’t true --”

“Thank you, Buck,” Steve interrupted, “But you’re the only one that feels that way.”

The boys lapsed into silence.

“Did you see the sign they put up on sixth?” Steve asked softly, after a moment.

‘Some people are born to be a burden on the rest’ it proclaimed, in big block letters. It wasn’t anything Steve hadn’t heard before - eugenics had been growing in popularity for the better part of two decades - but some days it hit Steve harder than others.

“They’re idiots, Steve. People who think that. There’s more to being worthwhile than how fast you can run or how far you can see.”

“You know that’s just the tip of the iceberg for me, Buck,” Steve said ruefully.

“So you being brave and clever don’t matter at all, huh?” Bucky rejoined, getting a little riled himself, “That you got more conviction in your little finger that most guys have in their whole bodies don’t mean squat, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Bucky, I can’t even...” Steve huffed out a frustrated breath, “I wouldn’t even be able to make it with a gal, even if she would have me. I don’t... _feel_ anything. You know, the way any guy usually would when...” Steve gestured helplessly.

Bucky was lost for a minute before it clicked.

“Well, that ain’t no wonder, pal, all those pills you take. Maybe you could talk to your doctor...?”

“No, I-I think it’s just me,” Steve admitted, ashamed, “I’m not like everybody else. Something went wrong somewhere. I like looking at girls just fine, but it doesn’t go any further than that, most times. Just kind of...fizzles out.”

Bucky considered that a moment.

“Is that why it bothers you so much when I talk about going with dames?”

Steve flushed a little, shrugging. That was part of it, he supposed. The other part had something to do with how jealous he’d been of Bucky’s time recently. It was a feeling he didn’t like looking at too closely. What kinda guy felt bad about his buddy’s luck in love? Of course Bucky was popular, always had been. He was a real catch - smart, cheerful, sweet. And even Steve could see that he was handsome, with lines like the Chrysler building - sleek and sharp. Steve had laid down those lines in graphite a hundred times, a thousand.

“Well,” Bucky said, finally, “I think you’re a swell guy, Steve. Maybe you just need to meet the right partner.”

“Thanks Buck,” Steve replied, allowing the warm weight of Bucky’s arm over his shoulder soothe his worries, a little.

 

**Upstate New York - Present day**

 

“It’s called asexual,” Sam explained, “And it can manifest in a bunch of different ways. Some people don’t feel any sexual attraction at all, some only feel it when they’ve established a strong connection with someone. Some have sexual feelings but not romantic ones, and vise versa. And others just have a low sex drive in general. There’s nothing _wrong_ with any of them. And it’s more common than mainstream society would like you to believe.”

Steve had done some research, back when they first thawed him out, curious about the LGBTQIA community from a socio-political standpoint. He’d been glad that progress had been made for human rights, but hadn’t delved too deeply into the nuances of each individual sub-group. Sam was right in that it was only recently that people had begun acknowledging the rest of the queer community in any large public way. He’d known fairies back in Brooklyn, of course. A few men who liked to wear stockings, a few ladies who went with other gals. He’d seen the suppression through the 50’s, the progression in the 60’s with the free love movement and the Stonewall riots. Then there was the AIDS epidemic and the slow, hard fight for equal rights ever since.

Steve had gone to rallies himself, picketed, made posters, donated funds. Not once though had he considered himself a real part of the community. The one time he’d heard another member of a pride club talk about asexuals it had been dismissive. Some people didn’t even think bisexuals existed, let alone aces.

“Any of this sounding familiar?” Sam asked him.

“The...no attraction without strong feelings, I think,” Steve replied, “And the low sex drive?”

Steve hadn’t thought it strange at the time, how infrequently he and Peggy made love. They were both busy people and she had never seemed to mind. In retrospect, however, Steve could see how their habits might be considered out of the norm.

“Okay,” Sam enthused, “Now we’re getting somewhere. So, now, lemme ask you something: how did you know you liked Peggy, romantically?”

“She was…the first person, besides Bucky and Erskine, that saw potential in me. She made me better, just by being herself. She kept me humble and clear-headed and present. I guess...people were always insinuating things, about her and I. I suppose it eventually got me thinking on the subject, about marriage and children and settling down. Once the thought occurred to me that Peggy might feel the same way, I started to notice that I wanted to look at her more. To touch her. To feel her near me. The rest just, went from there.”

“And you wouldn’t say that you’ve ever felt those things, for Bucky?”

Steve took a moment. That was the question, wasn’t it? What was Bucky, to him?

“I needed him, my whole life,” Steve began, softly, “I didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to need anybody. But I would have been long gone without him, I’m sure of it. His patience, his fortitude. It got me through illness and grief and war. And I used to think to myself, ‘Rogers, what the hell is that guy doing, hanging around with you?’ I guess I never really stopped thinking that. And after the train...and the torture - that was me. That was me that kept him in that war, and that was me who let them convince me he was dead, and that was _me_ who couldn’t stop any of it, when I went back to the past, no matter how hard I tried. So, you wanna ask me how I feel about Bucky Barnes? I love him. I love him more than anything I’ve ever loved in my life. You know what I really can’t figure out, Sam? Is why the hell he still cares about a self-righteous, stubborn, fool-headed jackass like me.”

“Well damn, son,” Sam responded, after a moment of stunned silence, “How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“A while,” Steve choked out.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Sam affirmed, “But you gotta know, buddy, that that’s not how love works, right?”

Steve furrowed his brows in question.

“Bucky doesn’t love you cause you’re easy to handle. And he sure as hell doesn’t love you cause you’re always right. Love is about the good things, and the bad. Love makes makes you weak, and it makes you strong. It makes you merciful, even to people who might not deserve it. It hopes, it trusts, it endures. So you gotta let it go, Steve. You gotta move on from all that guilt. At this point it's just an excuse that’s keeping you from putting in the work. It’s time to focus on growing, on becoming the man he believes you to be. Are you ready for that?”

Steve blinked away the moisture from his eyes.

“Yeah," he answered, voice firm, "I’m ready for that." 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Say it again,” he begged.
> 
> “I’m here, Bucky,” Steve whispered, holding on as tightly as he could.

 

It was several weeks later that Bucky found an envelope in the mail, addressed to him and stamped with an official-looking seal. He opened it, perplexed. It wasn’t often that he received mail from anyone other than his publishers. And this certainly...wasn’t....

A minute later and Bucky was walking briskly back through the front door.

“Steve!” he called, poking his head into various rooms on the ground level of the cabin.

“Steven!” he tried again, hollering up the stairs.

“Steven Grant!” he bellowed, as he strode through the back door.

There was a muffled thump from behind a stack of lumber Steve swore he was going to make a sculpture out of one of these days. A minute later, a blond head emerged, covered in dust and paint chips.

“Bucky?” Steve asked, straightening further, “Did you need something?”

Bucky picked his way carefully through the small labyrinth of drop clothes and paint cans and aluminum screens in order to thrust the document he’d just received in front of Steve’s face. Steve reared back a little in order to read the heading: New York Life - In It Together At Every Stage.

“You planning on dying soon, Rogers?” Bucky bit out, “Or ‘getting maimed, becoming insentient, or falling chronically ill’?”

“Not as far as I know,” Steve said, blinking, “Though, you never can be too careful. Even if you are super-human.”

“What?” Bucky asked, exasperated.

“What?” Steve replied, bewildered.

“Why did you suddenly take out a life insurance policy? And name me as your beneficiary?” Bucky tried again, reaching the end of his rope.

“Because I wanted my property to go to you, just in case anything ever happens. The kids already have everything they wanted from the old house and the money from Peg’s policy. So, I wanted you to have the rest. It’s not anything crazy, just my bike and some books, pictures, things like that. A couple thousand dol--”

“Woah, woah, woah. Hold up, pal,” Bucky interjected, “You want me to have all your stuff? When you die.”

“Yes,” Steve confirmed.

“But,” Bucky added, irritation cycling back around to confusion, “Why now?”

“Bucky,” Steve started, before standing properly to look the other man in the eye, “I did it because I wanted you to know that you’re important to me. You’re the one I trust with this. I guess this wasn’t the best way to do it, but I meant it to show you that I plan on sticking around. That I want you in my life, for the rest of my life.”

Bucky stared down at the paper in his hands.

“Well,” Bucky said, after a moment, “You always were one for dramatic gestures.”

Steve punched him lightly on the arm.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve replied, smiling, “You like it.”

 _I do._ Bucky thought. _God help me._

 

That night, Bucky jolted awake in a cold sweat, his limbs aching from where he’d tensed them in his sleep. A nightmare. He’d had them sporadically ever since he’d returned from the void, but this one had been more vivid. More...unsettling. Maybe all that talk about Steve getting injured or dying had stirred up...

Bucky’s train of thought was interrupted by a soft knock on his door.

“Bucky?” came Steve’s voice, barely above a whisper.

“Yeah?” Bucky rasped out, “Come in.”

Steve’s upper body peered at him from around the door a moment later.

“I’m alright,” Bucky assured him, “Come on in.”

Steve did so, padding softly across the wooden floor and coming to sit beside Bucky on the bed.

“You want to talk about it?” Steve asked, face telegraphing concern even through the dark.

Bucky sighed.

“You were dead,” he began, reluctantly, “Or gone. Somewhere far away. I couldn’t find you.”

Steve’s hand landed warm and firm on his wrist, grounding him.

“I looked everywhere,” Bucky went on, staring into the shadows, “Our old apartment, Phillip’s command tent - the one in Zurich, remember? - I looked in the Potomac, in the halls of T’Challa’s palace. It was like our greatest hits. But you weren’t there.”

Bucky realized distantly that he was shaking.

“I’m here now, Bucky,” Steve murmured, drawing Bucky’s unresisting body against his own, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Was it like this, for you?” Bucky asked, “Everytime I....”

“Yes,” Steve said, lowly, to hide the tremor in his own voice, “Every time I lost you, it was just like this.”

Bucky gripped the forearm curled around his chest, resting his cheek against the bridge of Steve’s nose.  
  
“Say it again,” he begged.

“I'm here, Bucky,” Steve whispered, holding on as tightly as he could.

_____________________

 

Bucky Barnes was, once again, confused. It seemed like it was destined to be his most recurrent state of being, these days. For the past three weeks since he and Steve had fallen asleep together, exhausted from their shared grief, his friend had been acting...odd. The man had always been kind but Bucky didn’t remember him being this...solicitous? Accommodating?

It had started out small, with Steve offering to pick up things for him in town whenever he went or asking Bruce and Sam to cook things he knew Bucky liked. Then it moved on to Bucky receiving things like a rosemary mint liniment that Steve ‘thought might help with his sore neck’ for after he’d been bending over his laptop for hours. Or a handful of wild flowers that appeared on his windowsill to ‘brighten up the place’.

Bucky’s birthday was several months away so it couldn’t be that. And Sam was no help. He just shot Bucky a smirk when asked about it and refused to say a word.

The gestures of goodwill were escalating, there was no doubt about it, if only Bucky could figure out why.

“What are you doing?” Bucky finally blurted out one day, unable to take it anymore.

Steve, in the middle of laying a blanket down over Bucky’s knees, looked up at him, face the picture of innocence. Bucky might’ve believed him too, if it wasn’t for the light flush, high up on the other man’s cheekbones.

“What?” Steve asked, in an obvious ploy for time.

“What. Are. You. Doing,” Bucky reiterated.

“Um, giving you a blanket?” Steve hedged, “It’s cold in here.”

“Did I ask you for a blanket?” Bucky pressed.

“You looked cold!”

“Steven--”

“What, a man can’t give his best...pal a blanket when he’s cold?” Steve asked, retreating a couple of steps as if trying to physically flee the conversation.

Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll let you get your own next time,” Steve huffed, before fully exiting the room.

Bucky burrowed further under the throw and stewed ineffectually for the next thirty minutes.

 

__________________________

 

“Sam, I don’t get it, what am I doing wrong? I am over a hundred years old! I should know how to do this. But somehow when I’m around him he makes me feel all of fifteen again.”

“I don’t know, Steve, have you talked to him about it?” Sam queried.

“I…” Steve started, “No.”

“And why is that?”

“I thought I could just....show him?”

“Show him what?”

“That I like him? That I...am interested in him. Romantically?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

Steve let out a groan.

“Tell me this, Steve,” Sam said, leaning forward, “Does he even know you like men? Or that you identify as asexual? Is he equipped, at all, to parse your awkward wooing attempts?”

Steve looked up at the ceiling as if the answers were hidden somewhere amongst the tastefully exposed wooden beams.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

_________________________

 

“Um,” Bucky said eloquently, as Steve unceremoniously slapped a pamphlet into his hand.

‘AVEN: the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network’ said the cover, in bright purple letters against a white background.

Bucky glanced between Steve and the brochure, eventually giving in and opening it when no other information was forthcoming. He read through What Asexuality _Is_ , What Asexuality _Is Not_ , scanned the various ways in which someone could identify as Ace or Gray Asexual, made it all the way to the Resources section before something clicked.

“This is,” Bucky began, tentatively, “You, isn’t it? This is what you were trying to me, back when we were kids.”

“Yeah,” Steve let out a breath, "Demisexual is, um, what they call it in there."

“Well, that...explains a lot,” Bucky offered.

“Yes.”

“But, Steve - why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think it’s part of why I never,” Steve began, haltingly, “Why I--oh, hell.”

And, before Bucky could ask Steve what had him all worked up, the other man was grasping Bucky’s hand between his own.

“Bucky, listen to me. I told Sam that I didn’t regret the choice I made, to go back to the past, and I meant it. It was a gift - a gift you gave to me. But, I didn’t have all the information, then. Not like I do now.”

“Steve what’re you…” Bucky stuttered out.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Buck?” Steve pressed on, “Why didn’t you tell me that you had feelings for me?”

Bucky blanched, whether from anger or fear Steve couldn’t tell.

“What good would that have done?” Bucky demanded, “Make you feel bad for going after the one thing you’ve always wanted?”

“Jesus, Bucky, I would have stayed!” Steve exclaimed, “I would have stayed, here, with you.”

“I don’t need your pity, Rogers!” Bucky sneered, ripping his hand out of Steve’s grip.

“It’s not that. I swear, Bucky, it’s not that,” Steve pleaded, “God, don’t you know how important you are to me? What I wouldn’t do for you?”

“No, fuck that. Are you kidding me? I wasn’t gonna let you throw away the chance at a life, at love.”

“Bucky, Christ, you’re not...you’re not listening to me.”

“Then spit it out, Rogers, cause I don’t have a goddamn clue--”

The rest of his sentence was cut off by Steve’s warm lips, pressed suddenly against his own.

Bucky’s brain did a full reboot. It was like a reversal of the chair, silence followed by electricity, except this didn’t hurt. This -- this was like heaven. _Steve._ He was kissing….he was….

Bucky pulled away with a gasp.

“What…” he began, throat tight.

“Bucky, look at me,” Steve urged, holding him by the shoulders, “Please, look at me.”

Bucky forced his eyes to meet the ones in front of him. Blue, with a little green in the center. Even when he couldn’t remember his own name, Bucky had known those eyes.

“I know that this is...too much,” Steve began, “I know that I’ve kept you waiting a long time. I’m sorry for that. I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry. But I’m here, now, Buck. I’m here and I’m yours, however you want me. If you wanna go off with this guy, Morgan, if he makes you happy - I’ll bow out, I promise. But, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I’d like to prove to you every day, for the rest of my life, how much I love you.”

Bucky shook his head, overwhelmed. It couldn’t be true…could it? After all this time? He supposed there was one way to find out.

Bucky reached up to grab Steve by the back of his neck, glad he’d put on his other arm today as he wrapped it around Steve’s waist, bringing them flush together. This was what Steve thought he wanted? Well, he’d better be damned sure.

Any moment now, Bucky expected Steve to recoil, to realize that he’d been wrong after all. To figure out that he’d been mistaking his desire to make amends, to regain their fraternal intimacy for feelings of romantic love. But Steve wasn’t recoiling. Instead, he was melting under Bucky’s touch, pliant and willing and, god, Bucky had to get him into the house.

The trip back inside and up the stairs passed in a blur. Clothes were shed almost immediately upon entering Bucky’s room, Steve only hesitating for a moment, though whether from nerves or regret Bucky couldn’t tell. He himself was too far gone, too desperate and aroused to give in to the anxiety thrumming just under the surface of his mind. Bucky’s heart beat wildly in his chest as he took Steve in, miles of golden skin, muscles flexing under its surface. His perfection only added to the unreality of the situation. Bucky moved as if in a trance, pushing Steve slowly onto the bed before climbing on top of him.

Steve was breathing heavily, in a way Bucky hadn’t seen since they were boys in Brooklyn, his eyes darting over Bucky’s features as if he, too, wasn’t sure how they’d gotten here. His irises were nearly gone, swallowed by black, and a small fierce part of Bucky crowed to have been the one to inspire Steve's lust.

Bucky fastened his mouth to Steve’s pulse-point, sucking hard and biting down. Steve cried out, clutching at Bucky’s arms. His fair skin purpled easily despite the serum’s effects and Bucky set to the task of leaving a trail of love bites from Steve’s jaw down to his naval. By the time Bucky had reached at his goal, Steve had his head thrown back and was rolling his hips, searching in vain for friction. Bucky fumbled around on the bedside table before getting a grip on a bottle of lube. He let a generous amount pool in his palm, lifting one of Steve’s legs up and away so that he could prepare him. He pushed one finger in, careful but steady, watching for any sign that Steve was reaching his limit.

But Steve only moaned louder, accepting the intrusion like he was born for it. The sight of him made Bucky lightheaded. He applied himself more quickly to his task moving from one finger to two, from two fingers to three. By four Steve was writhing, small pleas falling from his lips. Not willing to spend another moment outside of his lover’s body, Bucky flipped Steve over, getting him up on his hands and knees. He poured another handful of lube over his cock before finally, _finally_ pressing inside.

 _God_ , but it was good, sinking inside Steve, the warmth of him, the sounds of his pleasure. Bucky was half-mad with it, could barely stop himself from driving inside, deeper, harder. He made himself wait for a moment, making sure Steve had adjusted to the intrusion before forging ahead.

Bucky ran his hands over Steve’s broad back as his quickened his thrusts, fingers sliding through the sweat that had already begun to bead on his skin. He scraped his blunt nails along Steve’s scalp before resting his hand on the base of his neck, urging his head lower. Steve sunk to his elbows immediately, groaning low in his throat as Bucky held him there. The submission was humbling, thrilling, so different from what Bucky had expected when he’d brought Steve to his bed. Steve, who let out a violent shudder as Bucky’s cock brushed up against that sensitive spot deep inside him. Steve who had begun to whimper lowly with every movement of Bucky against him. Steve whose head was buried in his arms as he came apart under Bucky, taking his cock so well, despite it being his first--

It hit Bucky suddenly - really hit him, like lightning, terrible and illuminating. This was _Steve_. Steve who hadn’t protested a single thing Bucky had done to him over the past few minutes no matter how rushed this all must feel, Steve who had confessed his failings and begged for forgiveness not one hour ago, Steve who had only been touched like this by one other person in the whole of his life. Bucky made himself slow, something like regret settling in his stomach as he noticed how hard his lover was shaking.

Bucky draped himself over Steve’s back, blanketing him with his warmth. He wrapped his flesh arm around his waist, pressing them tightly together. His left arm he placed over Steve’s own, aligning them from shoulder to palm, allowing their fingers to tangle. He felt Steve’s breathing ease under his ribs, felt his trembling begin to taper off.

“Steve,” Bucky breathed against his lover’s ear, “Baby…”

Steve let out another small sound at the endearment, arching his back up against Bucky’s chest.

“Shh, I got you,” Bucky murmured, slowly drawing his hips back before resuming his rhythm, taking his time to savor the feeling of Steve’s body pulling him in before releasing him.

Their pleasure built steady and deep as they moved together, Steve angling his hips to meet Bucky’s thrusts. Bucky tried to keep the pace measured, but when Steve widened his stance and rolled his spine, arching sharply and impaling himself on Bucky’s cock, he could no longer resist the urge. Bucky sped up his movements, pushing harder into Steve's tight heat.

“Alright?” he checked in, and Steve nodded, rising to meet him.

“God, baby, look at you,” Bucky groaned, filled with tenderness at the sight of Steve underneath him, “So fucking beautiful. You’ve _always_ been....So good, Stevie. Oh, _fuck_ . Baby, _goddamn._ ”

Bucky could feel Steve getting close, his rambling words spurring his lover on towards his completion, and he knew he wouldn’t be far behind. Bucky picked up his pace one more time, angling to hit Steve’s prostate with every thrust, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as he pounded into him. He felt Steve’s body tighten around his cock and then the other man was crying out, shuddering violently as his orgasm crashed through him. The sound of Steve’s pleasure pushed Bucky over the edge and he came with a deep moan.

Both men took a minute to breath, both shivering from the intensity of their coupling. It took Bucky a moment to realize that Steve wasn’t just shaking from residual pleasure - he was crying. Bucky pulled out as quickly and gently as he could before turning Steve over and wrapping the other man up in his arms.

“Shh, honey, shh, it’s alright,” he soothed, worried that he’d been too rough, “Did I hurt you?”

Steve shook his head, burying his face in Bucky’s neck as he continued to sob lowly. Bucky ran his hands over Steve’s shoulders, down his sides, through his hair. He pressed kisses to his forehead, trying to radiate waves of calm.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Steve whispered brokenly, lips pressing the words into the skin of Bucky’s jaw.

Bucky felt his chest seize a little.

“Hey,” he said, softly, tightening his grip on Steve’s frame, “That’s enough of that, okay? You don’t need to be sorry anymore.”

Steve shook his head in denial.

“I mean it,” Bucky persisted, “Steve. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. ‘Cause no matter how many stupid stunts you pull, no matter how long it takes for us to find our way back to each other, I love you. You hear me, you punk? I love you.”

“Yeah,” Steve managed at Bucky’s urging, voice thick, “I hear you.”

The room settled into silence and it wasn't long before the two found themselves falling into a dreamless sleep.

______________________

 

When Bucky woke, the sun had just begun to rise, its first rays falling softly through his bedroom window. His gaze wandered over the expanse of warm skin under his cheek, rose-gold in the morning light. Bucky replayed the events of last night in his mind, thinking of Steve’s body under his, of the taste of him, of his cries as Bucky claimed him. They would have to talk more about all of this, at some point. Preferably once they were fully clothed. But Bucky didn’t waste his thoughts on that just yet, choosing instead to meet this opportunity with open arms, free from doubt. Trouble, after all, would find them again soon enough.

Bucky ran his fingers over Steve’s chest, pausing to rub lightly over a nipple. It pebbled under his hand as Steve stirred. Bucky moved his ministrations down to Steve’s belly, circling lightly around his naval and pressing small kisses against his jaw. Steve’s eyelashes fluttered slightly and his mouth parted, tongue darting out to moisten his lips. Bucky laid another kiss on his chin before running his blunt nails down through the hair dusting Steve’s abdomen, just above the head of his lover’s thickening cock.

“Bucky,” Steve breathed, eyes opening enough to regard him from under his lashes.

“Shh, babe, I gotcha,” Bucky murmured, shuffling around in the sheets until he found their discarded bottle of lube.

He tipped some into one hand before reaching around to touch himself. The first press was cool against his entrance, but the liquid quickly warmed and his finger slid in with little resistance. Steve had started to absently run his hands across Bucky’s skin, still drowsy with sleep. When his fingers found Bucky’s hair, gently urging him up for a kiss, Bucky went willingly, pleasantly surprised by the zing of pleasure that Steve’s tugging had sent down his spine. They kissed lazily, exploring what made each other sigh or moan. Bucky worked himself up to three fingers before withdrawing his hand and sitting up.

“Bucky?” Steve questioned, half delirious from the warm of Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky answered by swinging his leg over Steve’s lap, rolling his hips down so that his lover could feel how wet he was against his cock. The sound Steve made at the sensation was almost animal. His hands flew to Bucky’s hips, digging his fingers into the meat of Bucky’s ass and dragging him down to press more firmly against him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve said emphatically, making Bucky grin at the expletive.

“Yeah? You want me to sit on your dick, Rogers? Wanna come inside me?”

A moan punched it’s way out of Steve’s chest at the words. He nodded helplessly.

“Please…” he begged, fingers spasming at Bucky’s waist.

Bucky took pity on him, levering up on his knees and reaching back to line Steve’s cock up with his entrance. He sank down slowly, Steve’s hands gentling on his hips to let his lover set the pace. Both men let out a breath once Bucky was fully seated, each taking a moment to revel in the sensation.

“Sweetheart,” came Steve’s voice, low and reverent, as he ran his hands over Bucky’s thighs.

Bucky gazed down into Steve’s face and was caught by the look in the other man’s eyes. It made him feel cracked open, lost and found again, broken and healed a hundred times over. It was homecoming and safety and….love, so much that Bucky could have wept with it. He raised himself up, resting his hands on Steve’s chest before allowing gravity to pull him downwards once again, crying out a little at the feeling of being so full.  

“Yeah, _oh_ , just like that,” Steve encouraged, as Bucky quickened his pace, stomach muscles rippling as he rode the hard length beneath him.

The two rocked together, Steve helping to lift and balance Bucky’s weight as the other man found his rhythm. Bucky leaned back a little to brace one of his hands on Steve’s upper thigh, his other coming to rest over Steve’s on his hip.

“So beautiful, Buck,” Steve praised, “God, sweetheart, you feel so good.”

Bucky had lost his words, drunk on the sweet slide of Steve inside him, pressing against him just right. His thighs began to tremble with every thrust, even as Steve rose up to meet him, both from the strain and the pleasure. In response, Bucky bobbed even faster, chasing his orgasm. He felt sweat running down his neck, gathering at the crease of his thighs, making Steve’s grip slide where he held him. One of Steve’s hands left his hip, moving to rest on Bucky’s chest, his fingers splaying wide over Bucky heart. Bucky reached up to clasp his own fingers around Steve’s wrist, holding onto his lover as the first waves of his release began to wash over him.

Bucky cried out as Steve braced his feet flat against the bed and thrust upwards, hitting Bucky’s prostate and sending him spiraling desperately over the edge. Black spots danced in Bucky’s vision as pleasure surged through him. He listed to the side, dizzy with it, before Steve caught and held him fast.

When Bucky came back to himself, he registered that Steve had paused to ease him through his orgasm, his own cock still throbbing inside Bucky's body.

“C’mon, Stevie,” he coaxed, leaning back a little against Steve’s bent thighs, “Give it to me, baby. Wanna feel you.”

That was all the encouragement Steve needed. He was up in the next moment, wrapping his arm around Bucky to keep him pressed close before laying him out on the bed. Bucky’s legs rested bonelessly over Steve’s thighs as the other man gripped him tightly once more, pulling Bucky into the cradle of his hips in time with his sharp thrusts. Bucky laid back, enjoying the sight of Steve’s muscles flexing as he moved, watching how his mouth fell open soundlessly as his pleasure grew. Bucky’s fingers clenched in the sheets as the head of Steve’s cock dragged along his sensitive hole, sparking a pained kind of pleasure.

A more thrusts and Bucky’s eyes caught once again on his lover’s face. Steve’s brow was knit, sweat glistening on his upper lip as he moaned. Bucky wanted to lick it off him, but he settled for watching as Steve’s whole face began to tense in pleasure. The other man’s jaw clenched before a cry tore it’s way out of his throat. Bucky could feel Steve’s hands lock like iron around his hips, could feel his cock spasming, filling Bucky up with his come. It made Bucky’s spent cock twitch in sympathy.

Steve back curved as he slumped over Bucky, spent. He ran his hands over Bucky’s stomach and chest before reaching up to cup his face. Steve looked at him a minute, eyes liquid and stunningly blue in the early morning light, before leaning down to press a slow kiss against Bucky’s lips. Bucky raised his own hands, grabbing onto Steve’s arms and holding him there, letting their breaths mingle together as the sun rose higher in the sky.

Eventually, Steve let Bucky drag him out of bed and into the shower. When they emerged a few minutes later, it didn’t take them long to realize that they were both ravenously hungry. The pair laughed together as they dressed, teasing each other as they made their way down to the kitchen. Steve tried in vain to make the collar of his shirt cover the large hickey Bucky had given him in the shower and Bucky himself felt a little self-conscious about how gingerly he was walking. Oh, god - how was he gonna sit at the breakfast table?

Neither of them had to cause worry, as it turned out. There was a note waiting for them on the fridge, written in Sam’s tidy scrawl:

‘Listen, ya’ll, I’m real happy for you. But, next time, could you warn a guy? Bruce and I will be taking an extended vacation so you boys can work this thing outta your system. Have fun. Just not on the couch - that’s a shared space! See you in a few - Love, your friends who know way too much about what Steve sounds like when he--’

Steve and Bucky both paused in their reading, before dissolving suddenly into a fit of laughter.

“Well,” Bucky began, once they’d finally managed to sober, “He didn’t say anything about the kitchen table.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, once again, for going on this journey with me. This was the first fic I've ever finished and the first I've ever published in this fandom. Your positivity and encouragement really helped me see this baby through to the end. I hope that it brought ya'll joy, or at least a little happiness in the wake of Endgame. Until next time!
> 
> *Edit* There will eventually be a sequel to this so stay tuned! It turns out that my brain thinks these boys have more to say about all this.


End file.
